An increase of defaults and rising debts have Business Development Companies (BDCs) concerned as the trend may lead to a number of distressed credits within their portfolios. Specialists from Dechert and Houlihan Lokey will address these concerns and potential solutions which matter to BDCs during a webinar taking place on Wednesday, September 9. The webinar will focus on structuring issues (e.g., portfolio eligibility, valuations, MIP implications, etc.), tax considerations (e.g., distribution requirements, qualifying or good income test, asset diversification, etc.) as well as bankruptcy and restructuring concerns.
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MERS: Better Than a Faster Horse
MERSCORP, Inc. (“MERS”) has been under fire for years. We wrote about it a while back when residential mortgage borrowers challenged the ability of MERS to foreclose on mortgages it held on the theory that MERS, as a mere nominee to the lender, was not a real party in interest. More recently, local recording offices have filed class action suits against MERS arguing that the MERS system prevented them from collecting fees supposedly required under state law. Now there’s a sympathetic plaintiff! In the past month, the Third Circuit and Fifth Circuit both rejected these arguments.
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Risk Retention Realized – Potential Solutions for CLO Market Participants
In anticipation of the effective date of the Final Rule on December 24, 2016 (early Christmas gift?), CLO market participants have been constructing solutions that allow collateral managers to raise the capital necessary to support investments required by the Final Rule.
We have seen an increased use of a hybrid structure that has been referred
Volcker Rule – Five Years On
After years of delays, changes and significant debate, the Volcker Rule is now, largely, in full effect. Sold to a sometimes intellectually incurious Congress and the electorate as a central piece of legislation to limit systemic risks to the financial system, the Volcker Rule, among other things, prohibits “banking entities” from engaging in proprietary trading activities and acquiring or retaining “ownership interests” in (or acting as sponsors of) certain “covered funds.”
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Risk and Rewards of CRE-CLO and CLO Securitizations: Navigating the Capital Markets
More than 100 senior executives participated in Dechert’s Risk and Rewards of CRE-CLO and CLO Securitizations: Navigating the Capital Markets seminar. The half day event, supported by CRE Finance Council (CREFC) and the Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA), focused on themes important to the CLO market and the CRE securitization market. Panelists addressed
Grexit Deferred: The End of the Beginning for Greece?
For want of a baker, a job was lost. For want of a job, the economy was lost. For want of an economy, the banking system collapsed. For want of a banking system – well, ultimately Grexit.
Grexit, Grexit, Grexit, Grexit, Grexit, Grexit, (China), Grexit, Grexit. The Greeks will be fine, right? There is no such thing as contagion, right? Your lips to God’s ear, please. As I write this, the Greek Parliament has approved the bailout and it looks like an immediate Grexit is off the table, (although the Germans are none too pleased)! Wonderful.
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Current Marketplace Trends in Real Estate Crowdfunding
Today, there appears to be an ever-expanding number of sponsors and markets for crowdfunding. Commercial real estate is no exception. At the recent IMN US Real Estate Opportunity & Private Fund Investing Forum, Elizabeth Braman, Chief Production Officer of Realty Mogul, presented at a session focused on crowdfunding for real estate. It was very well attended. Dechert and CRE Financial Council (CREFC) recently hosted an equally well attended seminar in San Francisco featuring leaders in the field to discuss the current state of crowdfunding debt and equity real estate investments and that discussion, in our thinking, was illuminating about this fascinating, and perhaps fraught, new business.
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US Real Estate Opportunity & Private Funds Investing Forum Recap
The 16th Annual U.S. Real Estate Opportunity & Private Funds Investing Forum was held in New York City on June 15 and 16, bringing together private real estate fund sponsors, limited partners, and other industry participants. Over two packed days of panels, networking, and “shark tank”-style panel demonstrations, industry participants shared their views on the current state of the commercial real estate market, fund raising and predictions (from a fund investor’s perspective) for the near future.
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The EB-5 Visa Program: the Rebirth of the Immigration Investor Program
This is a good news story for once. But, of course, since the father of this soupcon of good news is our government, it’s almost unintended.
From the ashes of the economic recession of 2008 came the rebirth of the Immigration Investor Program, more commonly known as “EB-5 Visa Program.” This bit of social engineering has been around since the program was first introduced back in 1990 but got a second wind when everything else went to Hell. The purpose behind the program was to benefit the United States economy by attracting investments from qualified foreign nationals.
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Risk Retention – “How I Learned to Love Risk Retention and Live With It.” (Apologies to Stanley Kubrick)
As time goes by we start to get close to the first of two risk retention effective dates; December 24, 2015 for residential product and everything else looming December 24, 2016 (does anyone really think a Christmas Eve Effective Date was unintentional? Bah, Humbug!). More and more attention is now beginning to focus on the Risk Retention. We are grappling with the Rule right now in our resi market, in the CLO space where reissuance is a common deal feature (bringing forward 2017 concerns to today’s deals) and in the Single Family Rental (SFR) space which, much like the coupling of a donkey and a horse, is an oddly structured mule of a deal where no one is certain when risk retention will apply.
Continue Reading Risk Retention – “How I Learned to Love Risk Retention and Live With It.” (Apologies to Stanley Kubrick)